PEA RIDGE — The texted threat to a student of a drive-by shooting sent Pea Ridge schools into lockdown on Thursday.
The person and vehicle listed in the text as potentially being involved were located; the vehicle occupants were questioned and the vehicle searched. No weapons were found.
The text messages from one teen-age girl to another caused panic, lost educational time and extra work for city and county employees.
A 13-year-old female student at Pea Ridge Middle School received threatening text messages on her telephone Thursday morning, just days after an altercation between another girl and her. Video of a portion of the fight which occurred on McNair Street near Hayden Road is posted on YouTube.
The recipient showed the messages to her mother who took her to the Pea Ridge Police Department at 8:30 a.m. Thursday to report the threats.
Officers immediately began an investigation which included going to Pea Ridge Middle School to question the 14-year-old girl believed to have sent the texts.
At approximately 9 a.m., a school official issued a Code Red for all four campuses, thereby locking down the campuses - which includes locking both interior and exterior doors and prohibiting student and teacher movement outside of classrooms.
Later in the day, the lockdown was reduced to a state of caution, with students being allowed to change classes within the buildings.
The 14-year-old, who was arrested for terroristic threatening, was in the Benton County Juvenile Detention Center Tuesday awaiting an appearance before a judge.
The intent of a Code Red is for it to be issued when there is a threat of mass casualties or weapons involved.
Pea Ridge police officers were joined by off-duty city police officers, Benton County Sheriff's deputies and city Street Department employees in cordoning off the school parking lots and preventing access to the campus.
Parents received text messages from their children who were students in the schools, resulting in many students being checked out of school.
Superintendent Michael Van Dyke questioned how parents were finding out what was going on and where speculation of an armed gunman started. He didn't like the answer: text messages.
"We don't condone texting at school," he said. The school policy states cell phones are not to be used during school hours on campus.
Van Dyke said Thursday the school had notified parents, letting them know of an unspecified threat and the school's status of lockdown. That alert, he said, went out via text message by the school's information technology specialist.
One parent said she received the text message from the school at 12:39 p.m.
An e-mail was sent to parents and guardians at 12:37 p.m. advising of the lockdown.
At 11 a.m. Thursday, the lockdown order was lifted. Pea Ridge Police officer Lon Brown gave the school leeway to proceed under caution with no outside activities. Police officers maintained a presence for the remainder of the school day.
One mother of a kindergarten student arrived at the Primary School to eat lunch with her child, only to find the building locked and access denied. She was unaware of the lockdown.
Students at the Intermediate School (third through fifth grade) said they spent a long time in their morning class and then had an abbreviated schedule through the afternoon.
Students at the Primary School (kindergarten through second grade) noticed that many of their classmates left school early, but didn't know why.
Students at the Middle and High schools said they tried to find out the reason for the lockdown, some referring to a video of a fight on YouTube on the internet. Frantic parents, invariably with a cell phone in hand, rushed around the parking lot of the administration building, the nearest one accessible, as the middle school's doors remained locked and guarded into the afternoon hours.
The administration building, just north of the middle school, was where parents checking on the status of their children were sent.
"Parents are welcome to get their kids out. Students are being allowed to make transitions within the building," Van Dyke said Thursday.
"We will release students to buses beginning at 2:40," he said, stating the day would continue as normal.
Sport activities continued, with the volleyball teams leaving about 2:30 p.m. for games in Berryville.
"Our security's going to be beefed up, but there will be football," Van Dyke said, referring to the junior high football game scheduled for Thursday night at Blackhawk Stadium.
Asked Tuesday for a count or percentage of students checked out after Thursday's lockdown, Van Dyke responded: "There will be no written record simply because of the nature of the deemed emergency."
Van Dyke explained there would be no accurate record, because parents showed up at the door to the administration office and gave a name and the child was released.
On Tuesday, principals of individual schools did not have a count of the number of students checked out Thursday.
News, Pages 1 on 09/09/2009